The Dungeon Meat Mission: Introducing Tristan Da Cunha and Brawther's New Collaboration

There is a lot involved managing a label, it often means more to the team behind it than the act of enabling the production and distribution of records from the artist to listener, for many it’s as much about carrying out a certain philosophy – making a statement of their system of beliefs. For Dungeon Meat, the collaborative outfit of Leeds based Tristan Da Cunha and Parisian house afficionado Brawther, it’s their mutual love for what they describe as ‘raw, stripped-back house’ that they have put at the forefront of the label’s agenda in both their release schedule and also within the live sets and production of the duo. So, ahead of the Dungeon Meat clan taking hold of Room Three on March 1st, the brains behind the agenda kindly gave us a few minutes of their time to talk musical indulgence, beefy club tracks and what lies on the horizon for the label. First of all, it would be great if you could briefly introduce yourselves for anyone that may have not heard of Dungeon Meat before. Dungeon Meat is a new project by Tristan Da Cunha (backtobasics) from Leeds and Brawther (My Love is Underground / secretsundaze) originally from Paris but now based in Leeds also. We have been making music together for about 16 months and have already had a release out on the superlative My Love Is Underground that has received a lot of fantastic support since its release. So if you could take us back to the beginning. When and why did you guys decide to start a collab and label? We met properly four years ago at the first MLIU party in London. As well as really getting along with each other we had a large musical common ground, sharing a passion for digging records and uncovering club weapons. We became obsessed by a certain style house music that was raw, powerful, sleazy & stripped down club tracks and we started to call it ‘Dungeon Meat’, the words seemed to reflect the sound that we were feeling and wanted to play, so I suppose that was the first seed planted. Then it was a natural decision to try and make some Dungeon Meat tracks ourselves with this particular vision in mind. When we thought about how we wanted to put it out or what we were going to do with the tune, it was obvious that we had to do it ourselves. It all had to be presented in a way that complimented the vibe of the music and stood out from the crowd with a strong visual identity. There definitely seems to be a certain ethos around the Dungeon Meat imprint. Was this the vision you had always intended or has everything seemed to happen quite naturally? The vision for the label was strong from the get go but the actual visual side of it came together over a period of time with the help and talents of Brawther's brother Karim who is schooled in the art of animation. Our ideas mixed with Karim's experience and skills meant we could run with our imaginations and release what we had in our minds. And if anyone reading this is wondering what our "ethos" is at the label then I would say it's simply to release straight up, solid, club tracks that don't mess about and hit the speakers hard. I suppose our mission or main ambition is to make people’s heads snap off their necks. It's got to be beefy. Need I say more? How would you sum up the collaboration? Is it quite an obvious fusion of your individual projects? I would sum up the project by saying its two friends, having a laugh making tunes they want to play, exercising their imaginations and indulging in their twisted sense of humour. I think when you listen to the tracks you can easily hear each other’s individual personality woven through the music and essentially that’s what we want to present; Music with some character and attitude. We work well together in the studio, taking it seriously but having a lot fun and it’s the same when we DJ together, we just bounce off each other. You’re playing for us live next month – how does the live production compare to anything else you’ve done? Playing live is a new challenge that we wanted to set ourselves. It's something we've always wanted to do and this project opens the door for that. Live is different to DJ’ing of course but there is still a common thread. You still have to make people dance and entertain them. We have been writing tracks and loops over the last few months especially for the set so it's really pushed us to get to work and focus on the project. We are really looking forward to unleash some of the meat for the first time ever at fabric and hear it all on the great soundsystem. Blunt Instruments is also on the bill. He was one of the first releases on your imprint with the ‘Hold Back’ EP. Can you tell us a little more about him? How did the release come about? Blunt Instruments aka Jay Shaw is a good friend of ours who has been DJing for about two decades with the Hard Times crew and has been busy beavering away in his studio for half that time. He's got great taste in records, solid skills on the decks and is deeply into house music like ourselves. We asked him to come up with an exclusive moniker for Dungeon Meat when we had some tracks of his that we wanted to sign about a year ago. The tracks were really strong and ready to go, so we decided to present it as the first release which is the Hold Back E.P (out now). He's a real talent with a true school approach to making music and we are buzzing to have him on the Dungeon Meat team. He's requested three turntables for the gig so it sounds to me like he's coming to lay it down and put some back into it. We can't wait to hear him play and with him being a postman as his profession we know he's going to "deliver". So what’s the plan for the label for the rest of the year? Any releases in the works you’d like to talk about? We have a rough plan in terms of release schedule. Next up is a Dungeon Meat EP. From myself and Brawther entitled "Lose Yo Mind”, that should drop end of March all being well. Then after that is a D.M LTD release from a super talented 18 year old from Utretch in the Netherlands. His name is Julian Ton Sack Kie and he's dropped a really heavy stripped down EP that is raw to the core and for club use only, that should come in May. Then after that we will promo a D.M various artist E.P which will 4 club killers that will hopefully do the damage over summer. Then after that there will be another Dungeon Meat Ep from us . So as you can see there's plenty of gristle to chew on. What about yourselves? You seem to have a busy schedule ahead with a few remixes in the works, is there anything else in the pipeline? There's been lots of requests and interest in the project but we are just doing the things we are really in to and feel a good solid connection with. At the moment we are working on the first ever Dungeon Meat remix for Classic Music Co which is coming together nicely and will be incorporated into the live set at fabric. We are both working on solo material and Brawther has just done a remix for Skudge. I also have some exciting remixes in the pipes but it's too early to talk about those as I don't even have the parts yet. We will of course be releasing more on My Love Is Underground this year as well. We are really happy with how things are going and how the music has been received. It can only bare well for the future and we are excited about everything on the horizon.